May 15th, 2017

300 Block North Main Street May 1937

This lovely Depression-era view of a bustling downtown Bloomington shows the east side of the 300 block of North Main Street, one block north of the Courthouse Square. What catches your eye?...
1 mins read by Bill Kemp

May 12th, 2017

University School of Beauty Culture September 1939

Margarette Scott’s beauty school was located on the 400 block of North Main Street in downtown Bloomington. “We get personality training too, because we’ve got to please our customers,” one of the students said at the time of this photograph. “Most of the girls are 18 to 25 years old and high sch...
1 mins read by Bill Kemp

May 11th, 2017

What a long, strange trip it’s been … William and Beverly Meyers road trip Spring 1949

William Meyers and his wife Beverly (seen here) spent eight weeks traveling by U.S. Army surplus jeep from the Panama Canal Zone to Central Illinois—some 7,040 miles in all. Beverley’s parents lived in El Paso, Ill. During the epic journey the young couple had but one flat tire....
1 mins read by Bill Kemp

May 10th, 2017

Illinois State Normal University Junior-Senior Prom, 1949

Several ISNU coeds show off their gowns for the June 10, 1949 junior-senior prom. Louise Claymore (left) is in a blue chiffon; Barbara Schonert (center) in blue satin; and Marilyn McCarthy in beige lace with a stole....
1 mins read by Bill Kemp

May 9th, 2017

Normal grocery readies opening May 1949

Warren Craft (left) and two clerks, Don Bradbury and Catherine Chambers, prepare for the May 25, 1949 grand opening of Craft’s Food Store at 108 E. Beaufort St. in Uptown Normal. Today, the technology incubator/startup space Slingshot CoWork occupies this building....
1 mins read by Bill Kemp

May 8th, 2017

Extra, extra, read all about it! Pantagraph’s graduation edition, May 1949

Danvers High School seniors are seen here pouring though The Daily Pantagraph’s 56-page graduation edition of May 18, 1949. The Pantagraph distributed complimentary copies to some 2,370 senior from 77 Central Illinois high schools.These seniors delayed their “skip day” to Starved Rock State Park ...
1 mins read by Bill Kemp

May 6th, 2017

Eugene Field School Reading Class, October 1949

Eugene Field teacher Kathryn Carnahan leads a crowded classroom of 40 first graders in this October 1949 scene. Opened in 1936, Eugene Field in Normal closed as an elementary school in 2005, and today the 81-year-old building serves as the Vocational Training Center for McLean County Unit Distric...
1 mins read by Bill Kemp

May 5th, 2017

BHS Student Lounge May 1948

Bloomington High School students Wanda Rust (right) and Margaret Schlemmer work on murals in the newly opened student lounge, a repurposed second floor classroom. At this time the high school was located on the 500 block of East Washington Street. The current high school opened in 1959....
1 mins read by Bill Kemp

May 4th, 2017

Artist and Author Visit Bloomington May 1948

Artist Bob Hooton (left) and writer Dan Wickenden, both fresh from an extended stay in the Central American nation of Guatemala, arrived in Bloomington in mid-May 1948. Hooton, the son of Bloomington architect Phillip Hooton, intended to stay in the Twin Cities for the summer. Wickenden planned t...
1 mins read by Bill Kemp

May 3rd, 2017

The Great Levant, February 1950 Pianist performs in Bloomington

Oscar Levant (right), the famed American pianist, composer, and actor, performed with the Bloomington-Normal Symphony on two consecutive nights, February 23 and 24, 1950, at the Scottish Rite Temple (now the Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts).Levant is seen here talking to Dr. Kenneth Cu...
1 mins read by Bill Kemp

May 2nd, 2017

Municipal Workers on Strike May 1968

Bloomington’s public service employees responsible for garbage pickup and cleanup work staged a seven-day strike in early May 1968. This May 6 scene shows the wives and supporters of the striking workers gathered on the south side of the Courthouse Square. The following day the 60-plus municipal ...
1 mins read by Bill Kemp

May 1st, 2017

Route 66 Hit-and-Run Towanda, May 1948

In the early morning hours of May 19, 1948, a hit-and-run truck driver knocked down two gasoline pumps at D.E. Henderson’s service station in Towanda. Fortunately no one was hurt.Who remembers when gas pumps looked like this?...
1 mins read by Bill Kemp

April 29th, 2017

Normal Fire Department New pumper, May 1968

Fire Inspector Charles Smalley (left) and Fire Chief Victor “Spud” Sylvester, Jr. take a close look at the controls of Normal’s new 1,000-gallon-per-minute pumper truck. It cost $23,000 at the time, which would be more than $162,000 in today’s dollars, adjusted for inflation....
1 mins read by Bill Kemp

April 22nd, 2017

Franklin Park’s new evergreens April 1958

In the spring of 1958, the Bloomington-Normal Garden Club planted a series of evergreens at Franklin Park, the city’s oldest green space. Seen here is Joyce Lynn Hall, an Illinois Wesleyan University student, admiring three Pfitzer junipers and a vertical yew recently set in the concrete planter ...
1 mins read by Bill Kemp

April 21st, 2017

Free range … no more! City Hall booking, March 30, 1958

Bloomington Police officer Robert Shepherd (left) books a startled hen on accessory charges. That’s officer John Hauptman keeping the prisoner from flying the coop. She was picked up when officers arrested a man they found trying to stuff her in a paper bag....
1 mins read by Bill Kemp

April 20th, 2017

Corn farming in McLean County … 800 years ago!

Area farmer Nuel Downs, a lifelong collector of Native American relics, is shown here in mid-July 1972 assisting with an archeological dig at the Noble-Wieting site north of Heyworth. Did you know the area’s first corn farmers were also mound builders? Read all about this A.D. 1200 Mississ...
1 mins read by Bill Kemp

April 19th, 2017

Eureka Williams aerial June 1966

Aerial photo of Eureka Williams factory in 1966
This summer 1966 view of the near southeast side of Bloomington, looking east, offers a wealth of information. “A” is Oakaland School; “B,” Holiday Club, a private park that the city purchased in 1970; “C,” Meadows subdision; “D,” Lakeside County Club; and “E,” Eureka Williams Co. What else can y...
1 mins read by Bill Kemp

April 18th, 2017

Saybrook’s last Civil War widow Emma Cook, May 1938

In May 1938, the Village of Saybrook prepared to celebrate its first Decoration Day (now known as Memorial Day) without a Civil War veteran. The last two Saybrook veterans, L.H. Cherrington and Joseph Rennabarger, passed away in November 1937.Seen here is 85-year-old Emma Cook, on the porc...
1 mins read by Bill Kemp

April 17th, 2017

National Air Mail Week May 1938

Art Carnahan (left), manager of the Bloomington Municipal Airport (now Central Illinois Regional Airport), greets Harold Medbery, a pilot from the Tazewell County community of Armington. Medbery brought in nine pouches of airmail from towns southwest and west of Bloomington. That mail was then lo...
1 mins read by Bill Kemp

April 15th, 2017

Easter Lily Sales March 1958

Here’s a group of Y-Teens from the Bloomington YWCA, March 29, 1958, selling Easter lilies in the State Farm Insurance Co. headquarters downtown. The girls are not identified, but that’s Gladys Martin (left) and Betty Moore in the back. The girls were raising money for the local chapter of the Na...
1 mins read by Bill Kemp

April 14th, 2017

Bloomington’s Federal’s ‘electronic brain’ January 1963

Bloomington Federal Savings & Loan Association claimed to be the first financial institution in Illinois to make use of the NCR 390 computer, which was capable of calculating dividends and mortgage interest—among many other miraculous feats! The caption for this photo identified the NCR 390 o...
1 mins read by Bill Kemp

April 13th, 2017

Free-range Kids April 1938

This mystery photograph comes from the Museum’s collection of Pantagraph negatives. We don’t know the names of these kids or the rural location of this cistern or stock pond. If you can help with the identification, let us know!...
1 mins read by Bill Kemp

April 11th, 2017

Museum announces 2017 History Maker Honorees

The McLean County Museum of History announced today five recipients of the 2017 History Makers award to be presented during the Museum’s sixth annual History Makers Gala on Thursday, June 15 at Illinois State University’s Brown Ballroom in the Bone Student Center.Each year, the History Makers Gala r...
2 mins read by Lauren Lacy

April 11th, 2017

Judy Stone Named 2017 History Makers Honoree

Judy Stone was born in Columbus, Ohio on July 21, 1932. After growing up in Ohio, Judy received her bachelor’s degree in English from DePauw University and attended Garrett Theological Seminary in Evanston to continue her studies. It was in Evanston that Judy met her husband Jerry, who was workin...
9 mins read by Lauren Lacy

April 11th, 2017

Jeanne and Charles Morris Named 2017 History Makers Honorees

The story of how Jeanne and Charles Morris met “usually gets a smile,” according to Charles. The two met as college students working at a summer resort on Squam Lake in New Hampshire. Each September for two years, they went their separate ways - Jeanne returned to Spelman College in Atlanta, GA a...
7 mins read by Lauren Lacy

April 11th, 2017

Craig Hart Named 2017 History Makers Honoree

Craig Hart was born on January 11, 1934 in Streator, Illinois. He earned his Bachelor’s degree in Accounting and Economics and his Master’s degree in Business from the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana. While in school, Craig was in the naval training program at the University and upon gra...
8 mins read by Lauren Lacy

April 11th, 2017

Tree Planting, Lincoln School April 22, 1938

In a pre-Arbor Day observance, members of Lincoln School’s eighth grade class watch Jack Elledge shovel dirt around a newly planted elm tree. Lincoln School, located in Bloomington’s South Hill neighborhood, is now operated by the city’s parks & recreation department as a community center. Di...
1 mins read by Bill Kemp

April 11th, 2017

Jesse Smart Named 2017 History Makers Honoree

Jesse Smart was born on April 29, 1939 on a small family farm in Pike County, IL. After graduating as class valedictorian at East Pike High School, Jesse went on to study agricultural education at the University of Illinois. It was there, in Urbana-Champaign, that Jesse met his wife Susan. Since ...
9 mins read by Lauren Lacy

April 7th, 2017

Elizabeth Paullin Funk Undated

This circa early 1930s portrait of Elizabeth Paullin Funk was taken by Clara Brian, longtime McLean County Home Bureau adviser. The Museum holds several hundred of her photographs. Elizabeth Paullin married Marquis de LaFayette Funk in 1864. He built the sprawling country residence outside of Shi...
1 mins read by Bill Kemp

April 7th, 2017

‘Private Joe’ Fifer Memorial Day 1934

The gentlemen in the center is Joseph “Private Joe” Fifer of Bloomington, who served as Illinois governor from 1889 to 1893. For Memorial Day 1934. Fifer, a Civil War veteran, recited Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address to a crowd gathered at Bloomington Cemetery (now part of Evergreen Memorial Cemetery...
1 mins read by Bill Kemp